Chamber and committees

I am always keen to see tangible evidence of delivery, particularly when it relates to people’s lives and the barriers that they face. It is difficult not to be inspired and moved in equal measure when engaging with the BSL community about the barriers that they face and the opportunities there are to support the removal of those barriers.

There is a statutory element to all this; there are legal implications. There is a statutory requirement for listed authorities to meet their obligations under the act. The point that I was making about regulation is that local authorities have a responsibility to ensure that they comply with the legislation and publish their plans in line with statutory deadlines and deliver on those plans. There is no regulatory role for the Scottish Government under the act in that respect, but there is the backstop of what the legislation requires of listed authorities.

I am very happy to reflect, particularly if this comes out of the committee’s evidence, on what further steps can be taken to ensure that local delivery. We have a duty to deliver. You hold us accountable for what we do or do not deliver—and rightly so. When it comes to the national plan, the same will go for other listed authorities, and it is about all the public sector taking ownership for how to remove those barriers. If there is a tool, an instrument or a means by which we can make that happen more effectively, I am very open to considering that.

Let me take on board those comments, in particular. In my own consultation or engagement, some of the most inspiring conversations have been with young people, including young people who are still in school. I was very inspired by their comments on what we need to do.

The Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2009 places a duty on education authorities—who are the listed authorities for local BSL plans, too—to identify, provide for and review the additional support needs of their pupils, which includes all deaf children. The level of support that is required and the amount of input from a specialist teacher of deaf children and young people will vary depending on a child’s individual needs; that has become clear to me. We have to, therefore, support staff to increase the capacity in schools to provide effective support to deaf pupils.

We provide specific grant funding for the Scottish Sensory Centre to support such staff training. We also fund CALL Scotland to provide advice and training to support staff in the use of assistive technology when working with children and young people who have specific communication and sensory needs such as hearing and/or sensory impairments. Education Scotland has a professional learning resource to support practitioners to engage more effectively with BSL users, and the Scottish Qualifications Authority offers qualifications in BSL in the form of awards from level 3 to level 6. We track the number of secondary school leavers who are deaf from publicly funded schools in Scotland to see how many are in a positive destination nine months after the end of the school year, and that number has increased in the past few years.

That is what we are doing, but the evidence that you have just shared with me and the evidence that I have heard still gives the sense that some young people are not getting the full package of support that they want to enable them to participate as fully as they want.

For me, the answer comes in the answer that I gave to Tess White, which is that we must ensure that there is the right number of teachers with the appropriate level of training. Some of the criticism that I have heard is that there are teachers but that they are perhaps not at an advanced level of training and, therefore, a young person does not get the full advanced experience that they could get. I am very conscious of that, and it is why I would very much like to come back to the committee once we have done a little bit more work off the back of the committee’s evidence, and we can say how we can go further to fill the gaps of young people’s experiences.

I am not aware of it having been watered down. The BSL national plan is a six-year plan, so it represents our commitment to improving lives. It is important to state that we are committed to delivering on the plan, but we are also committed to responding to feedback. It is not that the BSL plan is so rigid that, if the community makes representations in another area where they feel that more progress needs to be made or issues need to be strengthened, we ignore that.

The plan is heavily informed by consultation with the community, and the actions in it were all chosen because they address the barriers that BSL users had identified in their daily lives. However, as all lawmakers and representatives in the Parliament will know, the plan is there to provide strategic focus. In a sense, it is a means by which all parts of Government can get behind the plan, because the nature of any language is that it cuts across all spheres of Government. It is not just the remit of the BSL team to implement the plan; it requires change from education, justice and so on. Having the national plan brings together or requires responsibility to be taken by other areas of Government.

However, as I said, it also requires us to respond to the feedback that we hear regularly. Take the procurement round for Contract Scotland BSL as an example of that. The process—the specifications—that Kevin McGowan just mentioned are in response to the consultation. That happens independently of the national plan.

Ultimately, the value of the plan will be in whether, annually, we can point to tangible changes that have improved people’s lives in the BSL community. A plan is only as strong as its implementation.

Yes. These are very timely questions because quite a number of education changes are being proposed or are currently being consulted on that have particular relevance to BSL users, including in the Education (Scotland) Bill, which is at stage 3 next week, on parity of esteem and on support for training facilities. I ask Alison Taylor or Robert Eckhart to come in on that.

I will ask an official to speak about the process, because I was not here to manage that.

On the criticisms, I have been following the committee’s evidence so I have certainly heard the same evidence as the member, some of which he has referenced. I am conscious of some of the commentary, for example, from BDA Scotland about how comprehensive the second plan is compared with the first plan, which included some of the areas where it would have liked to see it go further.

I was seeking to give reassurance that, in the spirit of always seeking to listen to those with lived experience and those who are key partners in representing the community, I do not dismiss their feedback. I am very happy to engage on that and on how we can respond to some of the points that have been made, independently of the plan. Rachel O’Neill made some particularly interesting remarks on education, which we might get on to. I was quite struck by that reflecting some of the other comments that I had heard when engaging with community groups.

On monitoring plans, an action in the BSL national plan focuses on the sharing of best practice, and we are working with listed authorities to develop how they effectively implement and deliver their plans. If every listed authority, as well as the Scottish Government, takes ownership of delivering their element to the best of their ability and seeks excellence and effective implementation, you completely shift the dial in removing the barriers that BSL users face.

There is a challenge with our regulatory role in relation to the 2015 act. It is up to listed authorities to comply with the legislation by publishing local plans in accordance with the act. We consider how we can support them to do that and fill any gaps that are identified. That is maybe the difference between a carrot and a stick. I do not know whether that is what some of the evidence was getting at.

Support is in place. We encourage listed authorities to engage with BDA Scotland in particular. We fund BDA Scotland and we ask listed authorities to seek BDA Scotland’s support and to work with it to engage with BSL users. That is all part of a process that is about encouraging rather than necessarily about regulating, and that might be quite a critical difference.

Does someone want to talk about the process?

I do not have those figures to hand. I completely agree on the importance of data. I am conscious that the impact of domestic abuse on BSL users was referenced in some of your earlier evidence sessions. Data is important, and so is training in the justice system so that examples such as the one that you referenced do not happen. Representation of BSL users in all parts of the justice system is also important.

It is important that we have, first, monitoring of data; secondly, training in the justice system; and thirdly, representation and access for BSL users to all parts of the justice system. Those are three ways in which we try to tackle what is a completely abhorrent issue in society.

I think that I have understood the question, but please stop me if I have not.

A couple of weeks ago, when I was in Inverness, I engaged with representatives of the BSL community in the Highlands, who were talking about the different idioms, accents and words that are used within Scotland, such as in the Highlands versus Edinburgh or Glasgow. I was very struck by the rich heritage that you refer to. It is also an argument for taking a decentralised approach in supporting the different communities. One lady referenced the fact that she had moved to the Highlands and had to pick up all the new terminology.

My second point, which I alluded to earlier, is that I have been struck by the pivotal role that Scotland has played in BSL provision for 200 or 250 years. The point was put to me that, because Scotland had some of the first educational facilities for deaf children and young people, they went on to achieve remarkably brilliant things. Scotland was a real pioneer in developing other facilities and provision. We should not take that for granted. We should be very proud of it and build on it. However, the message that came through is that education is critical. That goes to the points that Tess White and Pam Gosal have made, in particular. Education is the lifeline for young people. If we get the first intervention right, it sets them up to be able to achieve whatever they want to achieve, which is why it is so important.

On how we celebrate that heritage, there are a number of heritage sites, particularly in Edinburgh, that showcase the history. Maybe we could work with some of them on that. An example is Deaf Action, whose premises include an old church. It has a wonderful exhibition that showcases the history, with wonderful pictures on the wall and so on. Bringing that to a new audience could be quite special.

I do not know whether my colleagues have any other ideas on how we can showcase and celebrate that heritage.

The new deal for business was established to deliver more effective engagement with business on policy objectives. Having been the economy secretary through part of Covid, I was conscious that there was a risk of the relationship with business being very tense. In many cases, businesses had been shut down for months on end and their sales had fallen off a cliff. Some business owners had not taken wages for almost two years. There was constant questioning and querying of why the Government was taking the decisions that it was taking.

Off the back of that, we entered a cost of living crisis in which businesses were dealing with spiralling energy costs and higher costs in other areas, with consumers struggling to contribute to the same volume of sales.

Therefore, the relationship between business and the Government was particularly strained. Businesses saw the Government introducing various policies and legislation and were asking where they featured in conversations and consultations.

The point of the new deal for business was to reset the relationship, to ensure that there was systemic change internally in the Government so that it took account of the impact on business, and to ensure that implementation was done through partnership, with business and the Government working collaboratively and collectively.

That was the issue that the new deal for business sought to resolve, and you can see from the overarching outcomes how that work was captured. I am happy to go into more detail on any of that.

Convener, I assume that, if anybody else wants to come in, they will indicate and you will bring them in.

Yes, yet he is doing very well by the sound of it. There is a balance here, and the Government should not be, and need not be, deep in the weeds of every single business. As Dr Malik said, there are thousands of businesses out there, and many of them are doing extremely well. Often, when they get in touch, it is to acknowledge something that is not going well. When businesses are prospering—when they are succeeding, recruiting, employing and contributing to economic growth—perhaps the less involvement they have with Government, the better it is for them.

Wearing my investment hat, I would make the point that we are taking a different approach to inward investment and to high-growth businesses. There are several things that we are changing and have changed in the past few months. First, we are taking a far more professional approach to investor relations. Rather than waiting for a business to approach us as and when it needs Government support or intervention, we are taking a far more strategic and targeted approach to that relationship. I can share a little bit about how we are doing that, if it is of interest.

Secondly, we are being really clear about where in Scotland the biggest opportunities for growth are and where investment is required. Until recently, we did not have a pipeline of all the highest-growth private sector-led and public sector-led opportunities—in many cases, because the private sector deals with seeking investment and so on itself. There has been a shift on the investment side of things, and I imagine that that quote could be replicated for a number of other businesses that, frankly, are running their business and not necessarily reading up on every Government report that is published, probably with good reason.

I have not reached out to him, but I will happily reach out to him.